One year ago, Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, made a bold prediction: “We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents ‘join the workforce’ and materially change the output of companies.” A couple of weeks later, the company’s chief product officer, Kevin Weil, said at the World Economic Forum conference at … Read more
Few harbingers are more promising than the Swedish singer and producer Robyn. A sonic palate cleanser, she always seems to appear when we need her most. Her 1995 début, “Robyn Is Here,” signalled an alt-pop future. In 2005, her self-titled album bristled with a freedom from major-label concerns. 2010 brought the “Body Talk” era and … Read more
Hey, Jim Cameron here. I’m the director of “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” So this is Varang, played by Oona Chaplin. And she’s sharing with Quaritch, now that he’s in this altered state of consciousness, her backstory about how the volcano erupted. She doesn’t use the term “volcano.” She says the fire came from the mountain. … Read more
Don’t we need another one of those today? Some brave doula to help the world-to-come through the birth canal and to offer it an ethical path? I keep wondering: What kind of new moral being—good or bad—might be born in our time? One way to understand the worst actions and attitudes of Donald Trump is … Read more
When the Studio Museum in Harlem opened, in 1986, it occupied a rented loft. Last month, it reopened, after a seven-year hiatus—this time, in a handsome structure of dark concrete and glass, built specifically for the purposes of housing art. Thelma Golden, the museum’s director, told us recently that preparations for that reopening have led … Read more
Eventually, Ash finds in herself a gradual attraction, not only to religious practice but to the wild disharmonies of belief. Her mother is sliding into late-stage dementia, and Ash yearns for a new source of meaning, something substantial and hard-won. “I was there to wrestle,” she writes, of early visits to religious services, “to be … Read more
Paper cuts are the worst. In “No Other Choice,” a new comic thriller from the South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook, You Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), a longtime employee at a pulp manufacturer called Solar Paper, is one of many unceremoniously laid off after Americans take over the company. Months later, with his job search going nowhere, … Read more
Forest Whitaker’s “Waiting to Exhale” is perhaps the quintessential “chick flick”—and an ideal case study for all that the cinematic subgenre can do. The “chick flick” often concerns heroines in the midst of personal transformation, and it’s capacious enough to enfold romantic comedies (“You’ve Got Mail”), tragedies (“The Notebook”), friendship fables (“Beaches”), and mother-daughter dramedies … Read more
In a small show at MOMA, Frankenthaler seems to make paint its own living force, untouched by an artist.
“Daring to Be Free,” “The Second Estate,” “Best Offer Wins,” and “A Love Story from the End of the World.”